TextViewer

© 2001 Johannes Steingräber
<Jo_Stein@web.de>


0 Table of Contents

1 What is the TextViewer?

TextViewer displays LHA/LZH compressed text files on your Casio Pocket-Viewer.

2 First (important) steps

Note: Directory/file names, used in the following examples, need to be adapted to your system.

Hint: In contrast to the "ordinary" LHA 2.55 (part of the TextViewer archive) the PowerArchiver supports long file names and has an easy to use interface!

PowerArchiver can be downloaded at www.powerarchiver.com.
2003-05-31: PowerArchiver is no longer freeware. You can get the free (and older) version when you search the internet for the file powarc55.exe.


Important: Compress your archives using Frozen5 as Frozen6 is not (yet?) supported!

Note: TextViewer supports directories in LZH-archives, which means you can put all your texts into one archive and sort it using directories. (see later example screenshots)

  • Copy LHA255E.EXE, ADT.EXE (not necessarry for PV-S1600) and your text files into an empty directory (it would be wise to put the text files into a subdirectory – in our example "texte"; this makes compressing easier later on) and open a DOS box where you change to the directory you just copied the files to.
  • Now extract the LHA archiver by running LHA255E.EXE
  • Compress the files by typing lha a /d archiv.lzh texte\

 

  • "a" means that the files are added to the archive. As we do not have one yet, a new one will be created. Using this parameter you can add files to an existing archive without overwriting it.
  • The parameter "/d" makes LHA compress subdirectories.
  • "archiv.lzh" is the archive where the files are put into.
  • Here the "texte\" defines a subdirectory containing the text files. The back slash is important! You can give special files as parameter, too. "*.txt", for example, would choose only TXT files.
  • Our next step is making the LZH file "readable" for the PV which with the ADT tool. Simply run it by typing adt archiv.lzh – you can close the DOS box afterwards. For PV-S1600 there is no need to convert the archive to ADT format. You can simply upload the archive with FTM.
  • Now upload TextViewer.bin and the ADT file(s) of your archives to your Pocket-Viewer using the PV Applications Manager. For PV-S1600 you will use FTM to upload TextViewer.pva and your archive(s). (If you do not know how to handle this, have a look at the workshops of www.pocket-viewer.de)
  • Please have in mind that the program "PVAddinManager" will open the first archive in the file list. If you encounter problems when trying to open an archive with the AddinManager, try deleting all archives from the PV and re-uploading them, whereas the archive with the programs needs to be uploaded first! After it you can add your text archive(s).
  • Run the program "TextViewer" on the Pocket-Viewer.

3 Using TextViewer

3.1 Navigation

You can scroll by page by turning the wheel or (on PV-S460/S660) the pad up and down. If you have a PV-S460 or PV-S660 you can scroll single lines by pressing the control pad left or right.
You scroll by touching the display, too. Pressing it at the upper/lower edge causes single line scrolling, above/below the middle of the display scrolls a whole page.

The menu is opened by touching the "Menu Bar" icon or by pressing the wheel/pad. Menu items can – as usual – be selected with the stylus or the wheel/pad. You can close the menu via "Options" > "ESC", file windows by selecting [ESC]. (or the ESC hard icon)
Actually (almost) everything in the TextViewer can be controlled without the stylus. – Nice, eh? :-)

Note: Some strange bugs may appear when scrolling. If they can be reproduced, please send an error description and how the error can be created via eMail to Jo_Stein@web.de. Thank you.

3.2 Loading texts

To load a text file, open the menu and select "Select Text".

Now a list of available data files will appear. Choose the file we just created a few minutes ago (archiv.lzh).
Then select a file from the list, which you want to be displayed.
(If your archive has sub-directories, you need to change the the appropriate directory, of course.)

... and the file is loaded and displayed.

3.3 Changing the font

3.3.1 Selecting a font

Sometimes you might want to change the font for some reason. For this, open the "File" menu (selected first anyways when opening the menu) and choose "Select Font". Now you can switch to one ot the other "built-in" fonts.

3.3.2 Loading additional fonts

Besides the standard fonts, you can also load additional fonts!

Simply compress (like described in section 2) some Palm-Fonts (file extension "PDB" or "PFT") into an archive, load it via the menu item "Load Font" and choose a font file from list.
The chosen font is activated immediately and available in the "ordinary" font list, too.

Note: You can load only 1 external font.

Hint: A very good font selection can be found at http://www.rainerzenz.de/ at "Palm" > "Alpha Fonts".


3.4 Menu "System"

In the "System" menu you can set up standard things like date/time, sound, display contrast and the touch panel alignment.

3.5 Menu "Options"

3.5.1 Tools

To open the tools (clock, calculator etc), simply select "Tools" from the "Options" menu. You can close them (like usual) with the X in the top right corner.

3.5.2 Screen copy

Like some other programs the TextViewer can copy the display to a QuickMemo. A part of the screen will be opened as a QuickMemo and can be edited there for highlighting important parts in the text, for example.

Just choose "Screen copy" from the Options menu.

Note: You can return to the TextViewer via the X in QuickMemo.

3.5.3 Switching light on/off

Usefully the light can be switched on and off using the menu. For doing this, open the "Options" menu and select "Light ON/OFF".
Of course you can still switch the light on/off using the Hardicon.

3.5.4 Clean up data file "SHARED"

TextViewer configuration and data are saved in the file "SHARED" in the data memory of the Pocket-Viewer.
By time and several files many entries will be created there. The TextViewer allows you to clean up your memory by removing each single one of these data blocks.
Open the menu "Options" and select "Clean Up SHARED". A list will pop up, where you can choose which entry to remove (for example because a text is not in the archive any more).

3.5.5 "About" box

If you need to see the neat splash screen again, just open the Options Menu and select "About". :-)

3.5.6 Close Menu

To close the menu touch the screen somewhere outside the menu area or select "Options" > "ESC".

3.6 Exiting the program

TextViewer automatically saves its data when you quit the program by touching a hardicon (except QuickMemo, but there you can go back by clicking the X).

Of course you can quit or switch off your PV without having to find your stylus: open the menu and select "Exit" to get back to the main menu, or "Power OFF" to send you Pocket-Viewer to sleep.

4 Additional information

4.1 ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1)

The built-in fonts of the TextViewer are all ISO-8859-1 (Western ANSI) fonts and therefor display such texts correctly. Other custon fonts for other font sets can be used to display texts of those other font sets correctly.

4.2 Known bugs/problems

  • File and directory names that contain umlauts and other special characters are displayed corrupted in the selection list. This results from the fact that the font set of the Pocket-Viewer is not ISO-8859-1.
  • The Frozen6 compression method for LZH archives is not supported. The program then tries unsuccessfully to read such files.
  • Some strange errors may appear when scrolling the text.
  • If an archive is changed (uploaded with the same name but different content), another or even no file is displayed. (this happens because only file position but not file name are saved)

If you encounter new errors, please send an error description and – if possible – the steps that led to this error via eMail to Jo_Stein@web.de. Thank you.

4.3 Credits

Programming: Johannes Steingräber
Icons, Manual, Beta testing: Fake Bond
Beta testing: Michael Denzler
Beta testing: ToraxMalu

Alpha Font Collection © 2000/2001 Rainer Zenz

5 Disclaimer

The developer of this application (Johannes Steingräber <Jo_Stein@web.de>) cannot be held responsible for any damage that occurs directly or indirectly by using this program. It has been programmed with best intends but there still may be errors in it. Please tell the developer if errors occur and – if possible – add what produced this error.



Manual by Arne Hartherz
(also known as Fake Bond <fakebond@gmx.net>)
Last updated: 16.Dec.2001